Beach Day!

I had been having trouble this summer coming up with ways to keep the kids happy. I just always have so much I want to get done that it's hard for me to set it all aside to step out as a family and do something awesome.

So, today we went to the beach. One of the great things about living in California is that we can decide spur of the moment to do that, and then be there in a couple of hours. First we hit Target for way too much junk food and a few buckets and shovels, then we headed home to change and pack, and before we knew it we were on our way to the beach.

This was a more crowded beach than what we usually go to, but it was still really nice because there was a cute little beach town right up against the beach. It was nice to not feel like we were out in the middle of nowhere. Plus we scored really great parking. Literally 5 feet from the sand.

Goofing around in the sand.

Lunch is always something of a trial on the beach. I ended up feeding each sandwich to each kid. They just don't have enough control to keep their hands sand-free for 10 minutes!

We played in the water a lot. Jacob went from being terrified to go near it to jumping in waves as high as his waist. Once he was comfortable in the water it was almost impossible to drag him away. Emily has always been at home in the ocean. I sort of wish we lived closer so we could get the girl some surfing lessons!

Afterward we went to the local grill and creamery for some treats. The kids loved each choosing a flavor from over 30 that they had available.

I chose the fries. Cut and fried as we ordered them.

We got home, showered, had dinner, and got ready for bed. As we gathered in the boys' room, everyone was exhausted, but in a happy, satisfied way. And then - this makes my heart so happy - they pulled out a few of their favorite books and just looked through them until we pulled them away for prayers and bed.

These are the books they had out.

And, in case you're a little insane like I am and obsess over book details, here it is a little more in-depth:

Emily: Charlie's Birthday Present (Best book ever!! I ordered this because I had such fond memories of it from my childhood!), Mice and Beans

Caleb: Alexander and the Terrible... Day, Battle Bunny, Big Mean Mike, Creepy Carrots, Leonardo the Terrible Monster

Elinor: Mike and the Magic Cookies (another great one from my childhood!), Room on the Broom, Uni the Unicorn

Jacob: In the Town All Year 'Round, Curious George and the Firefighters, The Seven Silly Eaters

I love it. I have gone to great lengths to make sure we have really fabulous, worthwhile books all over our house, inviting our kids to sit down and have a read. No mediocre books here - every one is chosen very carefully and purposefully. And moments like these make it totally worth it. (You know, even if I didn't love making lists of books to own and taking a minute every time we're out at Goodwill or Saver's to pull new treasures from those shelves. :))

So, yes. This day pulled us out of our summer time funk a little bit and inspired me to plan more days out with the kids. A success all around.

Ogden Marathon

So, this one time I ran a marathon. And it was a huge deal! You would not believe the amount of time and training that goes into running one of those things! And to add to the difficulty, I had to finish all of my weekday workouts by 7am so Joseph could get to work. Some of those weekday workouts were 10 miles in the mountains. I was very tired for all of the month of April. Anyhoo, I got through it and then on the evening of May 14th I flew out to SLC.

The next day (Friday) was so busy that I wasn't able to get to bed until around 12:30, which was bad because I had to wake up at 3:25 the morning of the race. But, I made it to the start okay, stood around in the FREEZING cold and occasional flurry for over an hour, and then started running. Too bad the rain started right as the race did. And didn't let up the entire time. I remember being soaked through at the one-mile marker and thinking to myself, "25 more miles of this?!?" And I remember contemplating stopping around mile 6 but then thinking that I had put in too many miles (and told too many people!) to stop so I just kept going. After that there wasn't any question in my mind about whether or not I would finish. I just plugged along, losing more and more of the feeling in my hands.

But. The course was beautiful. And it was so well supported. And finishing was one of the most amazing feelings I've ever had. I was grinning like an idiot as I crossed that line! Moments later I was planning out next year and how it would be way better. So, overall, a great experience! But I sure am glad to have all that training behind me!

Unfortunately, I had my number covered the whole time, so I don't have any pictures of myself running. I did manage to find a few by looking someone else's bib number up, but they're horrible anyway, so no big loss there. Here are some other pictures from that weekend though!

I spent some time at Temple Square, wandering and trying to stay out of the rain.

I always love the flowers there.

And I found one of my favorite young women from Austin in the visitors' center! Yay! (Too bad I look homeless... I hadn't washed my hair in a while and I also under-packed and ran out of non-running tops.)

 My friend was texting me these sunny California pictures from the school walk-a-thon as I was enduring the depressingly gray and drizzly Utah weather.

And I was able to spend some time with my supermodel sisters (while Eric did dishes in the background).

I had promised Emily months ago that we would go get pedicures after my marathon, so we finally went and did that on Memorial Day. It was pretty fun. I should probably run another marathon just so we can do this again. :)

It was such a fun and memorable weekend! If any of you out there are considering running a marathon, do it!

Last day of school. And motatoes.

Yesterday was the last day of school. It was very bittersweet. The kids have had a great experience at Ellis Elementary School and have had fantastic teachers. We will miss them.

Last day of kindergarten. He has excelled academically... he's just gotta figure out the minor details of "following classroom rules" and "respecting other people and their possessions."

Last day of second grade.

 Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with all these kids for the next three months!

We were able to harvest a few early tomatoes today. Jacob calls the big one "the daddy motato!" Elinor calls all tomatoes "tormadoes." We've got a lot more tormadoes coming! I'm excited!

Gardening

Yesterday we harvested our very first tomato! I found a cluster of four cherry tomatoes starting to change from green to orange, and then I deemed this one lone, tiny tomato ready to pick. I probably picked it a day or two early, but I was excited!

And here are our tomato plants, growing far to close together, in the little cage that I built to protect them from birds and squirrels. I did not anticipate them getting so tall!

Our strawberries are starting to turn red as well. Emily was very concerned for their safety so worked hard to build this scarecrow. I have to stop and do a double-take every time I go outside because I think it's Jacob standing there. It's a little creepy.

 PS - Elinor's drawing from church today.

The tiny person is Elinor being kidnapped by the scary guy.

Busy Day

Yesterday was one of the busier days we've had around here. I dropped the kids off at school at 8:10, stayed for a meeting with the principal at 8:30, and then ran (literally) from his office to the multi-purpose room for a second grade assembly:

She's the 6th from the right in the top row... It's a pretty bad picture because I was squatting on the floor with the two littles, trying my hardest to keep them from causing too much commotion. The presentation was really cute. First they recited a poem and then they sang "All You Need is Love." Second graders are just so cute and enthusiastic! I love it!

After the assembly we went home for a couple of hours. The kids sat around watching Curious George and Daniel Tiger while I showered and tidied and packed. Then we headed to Google for lunch with Joseph. He had won a contest a while ago, and this was part of the prize. It was in one of the regular cafeterias, but they had these tables reserved for us, the chefs came out to meet us and tell us what they had planned, and they plated and served all the food for us.

The salad was arugula, strawberries, almonds, avocado, red onion, and a really delicious vinaigrette. I can say with no exaggeration that it was one of the best, if not the best, salad I've ever had. I ate mine and most of Jake's (he refused to touch it after putting a big piece of onion in his mouth for his first bite. His loss is my gain though, right?).

Next they brought out the entrees - short ribs, Brussels sprouts, and cheese ravioli with a pesto sauce. All of it was amazing. 

Elinor ate a lot of the meat and ravioli.

Jake tolerated the ravioli, but only stuck it through for the soft serve we grabbed from the cafeteria afterward.

Elinor is an expert at pulling perfectly-timed crazy faces.

I really don't know how she times it so well. These two pictures were taken one right after the other. It's pretty entertaining though!

We had to slip away a little early to go pick up the big kids from school, since Friday is early release. As I was driving there a friend called and asked me to pick up her son since she was stuck somewhere else. She ended up meeting me at the school anyway, but since she was in the middle of something I ended up taking her son and younger daughter for a couple of hours.

This is what our family would look like with 6 kids. Except hopefully the ages would be more spread out and we might not end up with two super-blonde kids. I did feel like I was running a day care though, as we all trooped back to the car.

We love hanging out with these guys because the girl and Elinor play together SO well. Another cool thing is that the older boy is named Jacob and they have a baby our Jacob's age named Caleb. It gets very confusing at times, but it's kind of fun.

After the friends left I had about an hour and a half to frantically pack for a camp out with the young women, during which I would be responsible for devotional and breakfast. It ended up being pretty fun though, and the campsite was fantastic.

This is where I slept last night.

 And here are a few other pictures, for good measure.

Jake enjoying one of Caleb's T-ball games.

Jake sitting at the school, holding one of his favorite toys to date. This cone was a steering wheel, a gun, a sword, a hat... the possibilities were endless.

The kids' favorite trees to climb. This picture was taken moments before Jacob fell from his perch and landed solidly on the ground. He was shaken but not hurt. Nothing a bite of cookie and a drink couldn't fix. :)

A Book Box

I wanted to put up a few pictures really quickly of some things we've been up to lately:

Firstly, for mother's day this year my mom gave me a gift card to Barnes and Noble and it was so much fun! I ordered it all online since our Barnes and Noble is pretty far away (and the brick and mortar store is so much more expensive than online!). I told the kids beforehand that I'd ordered each of them a book but that was as specific as I got.

It was really exciting for them to pull out the stack of shiny new books and decide which book was for which kid.

I love Elinor in this picture! She loves her a good map of Austin!

Jacob loved the packing material. He was far more interested in that than any of the books.

Emi settled right in with her new Shel Silverstein (Falling Up).

El was captivated by Uni the Unicorn.

And Jacob did put the puffy air bag thingies down for a moment to claim his book - May I Please Have a Cookie. I was impressed when Caleb voluntarily sat down to read Big Mean Mike in its entirety because it's quite a lot of text and he usually doesn't have the patience for that.

We did also get Sam and Dave Dig a Hole - anything Jon Klassen has a hand in is an automatic favorite around here. Jacob even knows his name! Ooh, but while I'm on the topic, Mac Barnett, the author of Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, collaborated with Jon Scieszka to write Battle Bunny and we all think that one is hilarious. Caleb has claimed that one for himself and keeps it at school. If you have a reluctant reader in your home, check it out!

The book I chose for myself was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, which happens to be #1 on the Amazon bestseller list right now (and she's Japanese!) and we got You Are Special by Max Lucado for Joseph. I figured he wouldn't take the time to read a longer book right now and that's one he's wanted our kids to have for a while.

This package was such a fun one to receive!


Jacob helped me plant a flower I got from a Relief Society activity:

He was excited to water it.

Jacob found this atrocity at Savers and dumped it in our shopping cart. Elinor approved.

I texted this picture to Joseph asking if he thought we should buy it. Really, why does this exist?

Jake's new favorite perch in the front yard.

I found the kids like this eating Otter Pops the other day after school. I don't really know what was going on but I took a picture.

Jake decided to take a nap at Elinor's soccer practice and rolled up in the blanket.

A Piano! Finally!

Before Joseph and I had kids, while we were still living in Utah, we bought a beautiful, glossy black upright Yamaha piano. It was tall, really fun to play, and had a great sound. Unfortunately, it was not a great time in our lives to buy a piano because we were moving around a lot and mostly living in apartments. So we had it in our home for maybe two years, but when we made the move to Austin, TX we left it behind. Joseph's brother Nathan and his wife Stephanie have taken great care of it since then, paying to have it moved and tuned and just generally keeping it safe. We've been happy to know that it's been in good hands. And we recently decided to just sell it to them.

While we were separated from our piano Joseph's mom sent a great little Casio keyboard that was perfect for us. The keys were weighted, it had pedals, and the volume control and headphones option were great for all the apartments we lived in. Plus it was like a million times easier to move than a real piano.

Now we are a little more settled so we were finally able to start looking for a new piano! I did love the black Yamaha - you really can't beat that sound - but I wanted something a little less formal for our home. When I saw a listing for a hundred-year-old piano that had been completely rebuilt in 2005, I was curious. It was beautiful, but I had no idea how it would sound. I went to check it out, not knowing what to expect at all, so I was very pleasantly surprised to hear that it sounded great, so we jumped on it. We finally got it moved in last Wednesday and are thrilled. It does sound old, but it's so wonderful to have a real piano in our home again! We love it.

El is (obviously) enjoying it.

She also enjoys being the center of attention.

Alright. We're done.

She sorta makes me think of these guys:

A few other happenings...

Enjoying Otter Pops together outside. The kids always beg to be allowed some time outside after school every day. The weather is really just perfect every single day.

The weather is perfect, but the Bay Area is really overcrowded. This means that Costco is absolutely out of control. I kept these three occupied and subdued while Joseph and Emily waited in line to check out the other day.

Picnic on the front lawn last Saturday. Jake was totally passed out from exhaustion and the other kids had gone the other direction and were bouncing off the walls.

Jake and Elinor have a clothes sharing agreement going on.